In the foreseeable future, sporting events will be recorded in
super high fidelity from hundreds or even thousands of cameras.
Currently the nature of television broadcasting demands that only
a single viewpoint be shown, at any particular time. This
viewpoint is necessarily a compromise and is typically designed to
displease the fewest number of viewers. We propose to create a
new viewing paradigm which will take advantage of recent and
emerging methods in computer vision, virtual reality and computer
graphics technology, together with the computational capabilities
likely to be available on next generation machines and networks.
This new paradigm will allow each viewer the ability to view the
field from any arbitrary viewpoint -- from the point of view of
the ball headed toward the soccer goal; or from that of the goalie
defending the goal; as the quarterback dropping back to pass; or
as a hitter waiting for a pitch. In this way, the viewer can
observe exactly those portions of the game which most interest
him, and from the viewpoint that most interests him (e.g. some
fans may want to have the best view of Michael Jordan as he sails
toward the basket; others may want to see the world from his point
of view). We propose developing a prototypical system which will
allow each observer to view whatever he finds most exciting and
interesting.
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